George Curry

Lies Pollute Republican Presidential Debates

(NNPA) How can you tell when politicians are lying? Answer: When they moves their lips. Until now, that had been considered a joke. Today, however, that seems especially true when listening to Republicans seeking their party’s presidential nomination.

Thanks to FactCheck.org, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center the University of Pennsylvania; PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning site operated by the Tampa Bay Times and the Washington Post’s The Fact Checker blog, it’s easier to catch politicians in lies. Here are some notable examples:

“We’re only inches away from no longer being a free economy.”

- Mitt Romney, Republican debate Jan. 7 in Manchester, N.H.

PolitiFact:

“…There’s strong evidence undercutting Romney’s claim that comes from, of all places, the conservative Heritage Foundation. Heritage published an economic freedom index for 2011 – an international ranking of nations using a combination of 10 types of statistics, covering business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption and labor freedom…The U.S. ranked ninth out of 179 nations on the list, with a score that placed it near the top of the ‘mostly free’ category. The only nations to be considered more ‘free’ than the U.S. were, in descending order, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, and Denmark.

“If the results of this study – which, we’ll remind readers, was produced by a staunchly conservative think tank – suggest that the U.S. is on the verge of socialism, then Lenin must be partying in his mausoleum.”

“I was talking to a state official the other day in Iowa that told me that the state of Iowa is being fined because they’re not signing up enough people on to the Medicaid program.”

— Rick Santorum, CNN debate Jan. 19 in Charleston, S.C.

The FactChecker:

“Santorum has made this puzzling comment before. ABC News investigated and found there was little to it. ‘Iowa, like other states, receives federal reimbursement for the money it disburses in Medicaid fees,’ Huma Khan reported. ‘There is no quota system or target that the state has to meet in order to be eligible for federal money. The amount of money that each state receives is dependent on its economy.’ She quoted a state official as saying that any reduction in payments ‘is not a punishment. This is a recognition that Iowa’s economy is improving relative to other states.’”

“Under Jimmy Carter, we had the wrong laws, the wrong regulations, the wrong leadership, and we killed jobs. We had inflation. We went to 10.8 percent unemployment.”

— Gingrich, Charleston debate

The Fact Checker:

“Actually, unemployment reached 10.8 percent during the term of Gingrich’s hero, Ronald Reagan. The unemployment rate did not get higher than 7.8 percent under Carter.”

“I could have stayed in Detroit like [Romney’s father] and gotten pulled up in a car company. I went off on my own. I didn’t inherit money from my parents. What I have I earned, I worked hard, the American way.”

— Romney, Charleston debate

The Fact Checker:

“No one questions that Romney earned huge sums on his own – he is now worth an estimated $200 million or more – but he has been inconsistent in the past on the question of his inheritance. He has said he did inherit money but gave it away.

“In a 2006 interview with C-SPAN, he said that ‘I did inherit some funds from my dad. But I turned and gave that away to charity. In this case I gave it to a school which Brigham Young University established in his honor, the George W. Romney School of Public Management.’

“More recently, in an interview with Reuters, he said: ‘What I got from my parents when they passed away I gave away to charity and to my kids.’ Moreover, The Boston Globe and the new book The Real Romney have reported that he lived off stock investments as a college student and he received a loan from his father to buy his first house.”

“Any child born prematurely, according to the president, in his own words, can be killed.”

- Rick Santorum in a speech March 7 to the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.

PolitiFact:

“We researched Obama’s position on ‘born alive’ legislation extensively during the presidential campaign. Obama favors abortion rights generally, and he opposed the state version of Illinois’ ‘born alive’ measure as a state senator. But he never said that premature children, even those who survived an abortion, could be killed.”

“More people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.”

Newt Gingrich, Republican debate Jan. 11 in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

FactCheck.org:

“…Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that. And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama’s time in office than during Bush’s.”

Don’t believe every word that leaves from a politician’s lips.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

A Diverse U.S. Population Will Not Guarantee Parity

(NNPA) The United States’ population is growing increasingly diverse, but the sharp demographic shift is unlikely to close the huge economic gap between Whites and people of color, according to an annual report issued by United For a Fair Economy, a nonpartisan think tank that studies wealth and power in the U.S.

Each year the Boston-based organization issues its “State of the Dream” report near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

Citing Census Bureau figures, the report notes that Whites constituted 80 percent of the U.S. population in 1980. By 2010, that figure had slipped to 65 percent. And by 2042, Whites will become a minority for the first time since the Colonial days.

“If the trends in racial economic inequality continue at the rate that they have since 1980, the changing demographics of the country will produce a vast racialized underclass that will persist even after the majority of the country is non-White,” the report concluded.

Examples of racial and ethnic inequality in the U.S. include:

In 2010, the median family income of Black and Latino families was 57 cents to every dollar of White median family income. By 2042, the median Black family will earn approximately 61 cents for every dollar of income earned by Whites. Latino families are projected to earn only 45 cents in 2042 on every dollar of White median family income.

The wealth gap is particularly disturbing. In 2007, at the height of the housing bubble, the average White family net worth was five times greater than the average Black net worth and more than 3.5 times the average Latino net worth. If current trends continue, the report states, Black families will by 2042 accumulate 19 cents for each dollar of White net worth. Latinos will have 25 cents per dollar. That means the wealth gap between Whites and people of color in 2042 will be even larger than it is today.

Education is the most important tool we have to expand social mobility Thanks to civil rights gains, affirmative action and other progress, Black adults are 60 percent as likely to have a college degree as White adults; Latinos are only 42 percent as likely. If current trends continue, by 2042, African-Americans will continue to make progress in closing the education gap. However, the gap will be even larger for Latinos.

People of color represent more than 65 percent of the prison population, largely because of harsh drug laws and selective prosecutions that are part of the war on drugs. Blacks are six times more likely to be in prison than Whites. Roughly 65 percent of Black men born since the mid-1970s have prison records. The report observes, “If current trends continue to 2042, the percentage of people of color who have experienced jail time will dwarf even that number.”

To reduce what it calls the “perverse concentration of wealth and power in the U.S.,” the report declares, “We need nothing less than a diverse, powerful social movement dedicated to advancing meaningful policy solutions on many fronts to reduce the racial divide.”

It will take a powerful movement to counter to corrupting influence that money has on politics.

“To gain political power necessary to make significant progress toward racial economic equality, the influence of money in politics must be reduced and voting rights for all Americans must be restored and protected,” the reports observes. “Eliminating racial inequality will require a powerful and sustained political movement, aligned not just along the lines of race, but also by economic interests.”

Authors of the report noted that the Occupy Wall Street movement and similar efforts around the country are steps in the right direction toward building a broad coalition.

In the aftermath of King Day celebrations, it is important to remember that Dr. King was organizing a Poor People’s Campaign at the time of his assassination. Encouraged by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1968, he was creating a movement to address economic injustice.

In his last speech on the eve of his assassination, referred to as the “Mountain Top” speech, Dr. King talked about the need to support Black business. He said, “We begin the process of building a greater economic base.”

Picking up where King left off, the report stated, “It is a moral and economic imperative that we address the racial economic divide now. If we are to chart a path to a more promising future, one in which the racial economic divide is significantly narrowed and prosperity is more broadly shared, then we must take immediate action to ensure that the coming majority is not further burdened by the legacy of racism and White supremacy in the United States.”

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

Surge in Polls Helps Obama's Re-election Prospects

(NNPA) After winning the show-down with House Republicans shortly before Christmas over extending unemployment insurance and receiving an uptick in his job-approval ratings, President Obama is now in a better position to win re-election, despite a sluggish economy.

With the Iowa caucus over and New Hampshire as the next GOP battleground, Obama is expecting to face former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the general election next November. Former Speaker of House Newt Gingrich, like other candidates before him, briefly assumed the front-runner mantle before his poor performance in Iowa.

The good news for Obama is that his populist themes and his willingness to call out Republicans are winning over voters.

A story in the Washington Post observed: “A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Americans are still broadly disapproving of Obama’s handling of the economy and jobs, the top issues, but that views of his overall performance have recovered among key groups, including independents, young adults and seniors.”

It noted, “Obama’s job-approval rating is now its highest since March, excluding a temporary bump after the killing of Osama bin Laden: Forty-nine percent approve and 47 percent disapprove.”

The poll, taken Dec. 15-18, found Republican Congressional support has fallen to 20 percent.

Both parties have actively courted middle-class voters. And Obama seems to be winning that matchup as well, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. When asked about protecting the middle class, 50 percent of respondents said they trusted Obama over Republicans, who were favored by only 35 percent.

This does not mean that Obama is guaranteed re-election.

While Democrats enjoyed watching Republican candidates form a circular firing squad in Iowa, aided by unprecedented spending by outside groups called super PACs, they realize that once the GOP selects a nominee, all that negative campaigning will be aimed at Obama. A large segment of the GOP hates Mitt Romney, but they hate Obama more.

This will be the first presidential election since a pair of 2010 Supreme Court decision cleared the way for unlimited corporate and individual donations to support independent political organizations. It is estimated that such contributions to candidates seeking federal office could reach $6 billion to $7 billion this year.

On another front, the Washington Post reported Sunday that Republican officials have created a video catalogue of every word Obama has uttered since launching his 2008 presidential campaign.

The story said, “The GOP playbook is designed to take one of Obama’s greatest assets – the power of his oratory – and turn it into a liability.”

One attack on Obama will feature a 2009 clip from the “Today” show in which he said that if he could not fix the economy in three years, “then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told the Post, “That’s a clip the American people will hear and see over and over and over again…The nice thing about Barack Obama is that he’s given us plenty of material. The one thing he loves to do is give speeches.”

Obama plans to use even more speeches to argue that he is a stronger advocate for the middle-class and unemployed workers than Republicans. He hopes to depict the GOP as concerned only about the plight of superrich and keeping tax loopholes for large corporations.

Like Harry Truman, who campaigned against a do-nothing Congress, Obama is drawing a sharp contrast between his administration and Republicans. However, Obama can’t totally disassociate himself from Congress if he wants any additional legislative victories. One of his first tests in 2012 will be to obtain a one-year extension of unemployment benefits, which is set to expire in less than two months.

Obama’s team also must do a better job communicating his message if he is to win a second term. Many polls show that although Obama’s personal approval ratings are low, many of the policies he has proposed – including using a combination of higher taxes on the wealthy and spending cuts to lower the deficit – resonate with most voters, including many Republicans.

Both Democrats and Republicans are disappointed that the economy remains sluggish.

When asked on the CBS program “60 Minutes” why he should be re-elected, Obama replied, “Not only saving this country from a Great Depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we’re going to start lowering health care costs and you’re never going to go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts and the system is more stable and secure. Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field.”

He added, “But when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re going to keep on at it.”

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

Ron Paul's Racist Rants

(NNPA) If you’ve watched any of the Republican debates, you’ll remember Ron Paul, the 76-year-old libertarian congressman from Texas whose oversized suit coats look like they are about to fall off his frail shoulders. You’ll also remember that no debate questioner asked him about the overtly racist views that appeared in his newsletters for two decades.

But now that Paul has surged to front-runner status in Iowa, he is being grilled about comments that range from denigrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to objecting to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the 1990s, he described Dr. King as a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours” and “seduced underage girls and boys.” He even claimed – without a hint of proof – that Dr. King “made a pass at” fellow civil rights warrior Ralph Abernathy, who succeeded King as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

When Ronald Reagan signed the Martin Luther King Holiday bill into law, Paul wrote, “What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!” He added, “We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.”

The controversial remarks were published in various for-profit Ron Paul newsletters in the 1980s and 1990s. The newsletters included: Ron Paul’s Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, Ron Paul’s Survival Report and the Ron Paul’s Investment Letter.

On January 8, 2008, The New Republic ran an article on Paul titled, “Angry White Man.” It was accompanied by an illustration of Paul wearing a confederate necktie and rebel hat. The story, written by James Kirchick, noted that Ron Paul’s newsletters were published on a monthly basis from 1978 to at least 1999. Most are on file in the right-wing extremists literature collections at the Wisconsin Historical Society and the University of Kansas.

Here are some excerpts from the newsletters, which were said to earn Paul at least $1million a year:

· After the uprising in Watts, the Ron Paul Political Report said in June 1992, “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began.”

· “*… If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-age male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,” one report said.

· According to a newsletter bearing Paul’s name, “…Opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions.”

· The late congresswoman Barbara Jordon of Texas was called the “archetypical half-educated victimologist.”

· I* a December 1989 edition of Ron Paul’s Investment Letter, it was predicted that “Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities.” According to the publication, “…Mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white ‘haves.’” · I* In June 1991, following a racial incident in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, D.C., one headline screamed, “Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo.”

· I* In October of 1992, a newsletter bearing Paul’s name stated, “I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.”

· “* Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of black males in that city are semi-criminal if not entirely criminal,” one Ron Paul newsletter asserts.

· * Praising former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 1990, Ron Paul said through his newsletter that “our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race-privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom.”

Ron Paul’s venom was not limited to his newsletters. While many were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in 2004, Ron Paul was still objecting to it, saying June 4, 2004 on the floor of Congress, “…the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.”

Incredulously, Ron Paul wants us to believe that not only did he not write the un-bylined racist comments in the newsletters that carried his name, but that he was unaware they appeared in his publications.

“I didn’t write them, I didn’t read them at the time, and I disavow them,” he told Gloria Borger of CNN. “I never read that stuff. I was probably unaware of it 10 years after it was written, and it’s been going on 20 years that people have pestered me about this. CNN does it every single time. When are you going to wear yourself out?”

When Borger continued to press Paul, he abruptly terminated the interview. “These are pretty incendiary,” she told Paul. Unclipping his microphone, he said, “Only because of people like you.”

No, only because of Ron Paul’s documented record of racism.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

The Obama Blueprint for Re-Election

(NNPA) With the next election 11 months away, President Obama has begun sharpening his populist message and drawing a sharp contrast between his vision for America and the Republican alternative.

Obama’s speech last week in Osawatomie, Kan. provided an example of how he plans to attack his Republican opposition.

“There is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. ‘The market will take care of everything,’ they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty…That theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work.”

President Obama realizes that it will not be sufficient to simply portray his Republican challenger as hawking a discredited economic theory while he highlights economic inequality. In an interview that aired Sunday night on the television program “60 Minutes,” Steve Kroft asked: “Why do you think you deserve to be re-elected? What have you accomplished?”

Without hesitating, Obama replied, “Not only saving the country from a Great Depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we’re going to start lowering health care costs and you’re never going to go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts and the system is more stable and secure. Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. But when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re going to keep at it.”

It would be a serious mistake to think that Obama can match his 2008 numbers in the upcoming election. Don’t forget that his 53 percent of the popular vote was the largest share a presidential candidate had attained in 20 years.

In his “60 Minutes” interview, President Obama acknowledged the economy could be a stumbling block to his re-election.

“We’ve gone through an incredibly difficult time in this country,” he said. “And I would be surprised if the American people felt satisfied right now. They shouldn’t be satisfied. We’ve got a lot more work to do in order to get this country and the economy moving in ways that benefit everybody, as opposed to just a few.”

The electoral contest between Obama and the eventual Republican nominee begins almost even, with the president holding 186 votes in his core states and the GOP controlling 191. As always, the outcome will be largely determined by what happens in the 12 battleground states.

Changing demographics could work to Obama’s advantage.

“The six Midwest/Rust Belt states (Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) are all marked by slow growth and by a relatively small and slow-growing percentage of voters from communities of color,” according to the Center for American Progress report on electoral votes titled, “The Path to 270: Demographics versus Economics in the 2012 Presidential Election.”

It continued, “These states are projected to average around 15 percent minority voters in 2012, ranging from a low of 10 percent in Iowa to a high of 21 percent in Pennsylvania. But this relatively small base of minority voters is supplemented for Democrats by fairly strong support among these states’ growing white college-graduate populations, who gave Obama an average 5-point advantage in 2008.”

The three Southwest swing states – Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico – have experienced a significant increase in voters of color, primarily Latinos. Their projected non-White electorate is expected to average 36 percent, ranging from 21 percent of the electorate in Colorado to 52 percent in New Mexico.

In the three New South swing states – Virginia, North Carolina and Florida – there is both good news and bad news for the president. The good news is that voters of color are expected to comprise 31 percent of the electorate. The bad news is that unlike the Southwest, White college graduates in the South favor Republicans over Democrats.

As Obama strategists carefully craft his re-election, it is obvious that the plan includes resisting efforts to depict him as a weak president.

When asked in a news conference about Republican charges that his foreign policy is one of appeasement, President Obama replied: “Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al Qaeda leaders who were taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or, whoever’s left out there. Ask them about that.”

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.